"When the Giants Come to Town..." is my blog intended to chronicle my thoughts on San Francisco Giants baseball. My special interest is in prospects and the farm system, but of course, will comment on all aspects of the San Francisco Giants. I will also comment on baseball in general, particularly from a fantasy baseball perspective. I hope you will find the site informative, and invite you to join in the discussion.

Friday, June 30, 2017

The Giants unleashed to relentless 18 hit attack that wore down Gerrit Cole and the Pirates to pick up a struggling Johnny Cueto and extend their winning streak to 4 games. Key Lines:

Denard Span CF- 4 for 5, HR(5), BB, SB(4). BA= .298. Span led off the game with a 411 ft HR off Gerrit Cole who was hitting 97-99 MPH with his FB. Span has had a tremendous June finishing the month with a .374 BA.

Joe Panik 2B- 3 for 5, BB. BA= .279. Panik also had a great June finishing with a .341 BA.

Hunter Pence RF- 3 for 4, BB, HBP. BA= .269. At the end of the day, the first 3 batters in the Giants lineup reached base 14 times. Pence hit .289 for the month of June.

Buster Posey C- 1 for 5, 2B. BA= .341. A bit of a frustrating game for Buster but the double was scorched down the LF line and drove in 2 runs.

Brandon Belt 1B- 2 for 4, 2B, HR(15), BB, SF. BA= .232. A great game for Belt who hit just .221 for the month of June but has hit .295 since June 17. He ended an 11 game hit streak on Thursday against the Rockies with an 0 for 4, but came right back with one of his best games of the season tonight.

Austin Slater LF- 2 for 5. BA= .338. Right now, Slater seems to be exclusively going to RF, which he is having success with. Reminds me a bit of the pro debut of a Giant from the distant past, Dirty Al Gallagher. Somehow managed to hit a ball almost to the warning track with a broken bat. The kangaroo court, it the Giants have one, should have fun with that one.

Ryder Jones PH/3B- 1 for 3. BA= .053. Jones broke the hex and got his first MLB hit and scored his first MLB run. Got lots of high 5's and gave back a lot of smiles in the dugout.

Johnny Cueto RHP- 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.20. Cueto gave up 3 runs in the first inning, then sweated through 4 more with runners on base every inning on a muggy night in Pittsburgh. He somehow managed to pitch his way out of every jam in innings 2-5. He threw 114 pitches in the 5 inning effort.

Dan Slania RHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 0.00. Big Dan Slania makes his MLB debut a success with a scoreless frame in mop up time. He featured a FB that ran 92-93 MPH and a very slurvy breaking ball that might have been just a bit too easy for hitters to pick up early.

Clubhouse "chemistry" is a murky topic. What goes on in MLB clubhouses is generally guarded with similar intensity as a nuclear stockpile. What's even less clear than what goes on in a clubhouse is what impact it does or doesn't have on a team's performance. There is some circumstantial evidence that the current Giants team does not exactly have a hung-ho attitude and has not exactly circled the wagons in the face of adversity. They say where there's smoke there's fire. Here are a few puffs of smoke that have gone up over the past year:

-A big deal was made last year and over the offseason about the impact Gordon Beckham had on the Giants clubhouse in general and Buster Posey in particular. Apparently Beckham had a knack for being not afraid to needle The Buster and have it lighten him up a bit.

-Johnny Cueto made some comments in spring training about the somber atmosphere in the clubhouse and drew a distinction between what type of clubhouse the white dudes like and what the latinos like, quiet vs loud.

-Buster Posey got in Brandon Belt's face during a game apparently for not paying attention to positioning instructions.

-Javier Lopez, while filling in as color man on the TV broadcast, took to giving nicknames. I am not sure how many of these he did but the two I saw/heard were "Sparky" for Belt and "Gerald" for Buster Posey. Both of those struck me as being a bit on the snarky side and Lopez is less than a year removed from being part of that clubhouse.

-Ken Rosenthal recently reported a story about the Giants bullpen being upset with Mark Melancon over Melancon insisting on changing the pregame stretching routine to fit his flow. There was some scrambling to contain the damage and it does seem like the story was exaggerated a bit, but the fact that someone, apparently from within the team, would even go near the topic with Rosenthal tells you something. I mean, I seriously doubt that Rosenthal just made the story up!

Often, the guys you need to worry about in the clubhouse are not the stars or starting players but the guys who come off the bench. I have no idea whether it had an impact on the current clubhouse atmosphere, whatever it may be, but the Giants took a very different approach to filling out their roster this spring. Going in, they had a reasonable bench penciled in with Gorkys Hernandez able to cover all 3 OF positions and maybe even do some platooning with Denard Span. They had Conor Gillaspie able to cover 3B and 1B with Kelby Tomlinson able to take the MI positions as well as OF in a pinch. They needed an upgrade at backup catcher and needed a RH power bat off the bench who could play a corner OF position.

They brought in Tim Fedorowicz to compete for backup catcher, then later signed a clear upgrade in Nick Hundley. OK, so far so good. I was A-OK with the Hwang signing. He appeared to be a bonafide KBO star and some of those players have performed very well in MLB. If he turned out to be a clear upgrade on Gillaspie, or even if he pushed Nunez to the bench, you can't blame Bobby Evans for wanting to upgrade the team like that.

That's when the silliness seemed to take over. First there was Jimmy Rollins, who had not been good for at least 2 years, apparently just because he's from the Bay Area. Then there was Gordon Beckham, who hit .000 in 2016, just because he could get Buster Posey out of his shell. Michael Morse was recruited and signed because he was in Hunter Pence's wedding. Aaron Hill was brought in, maybe because he went 5 for 5 against the Giants a couple of times, oh, about 6 or 7 years ago. Chris Marrero was probably a reasonable flyer and Justin Ruggiano was a possible RH bat who could play CF in a pinch, but it just seemed like way too many guys were brought in for the wrong reasons with no clear plan of how to sort it all out.

Whether the apparent chaos of sorting out their bench was in any way related to the dismal performance of the bench or the allegedly dysfunctional clubhouse is probably impossible to know. I do know that "competition" in spring training is a terrible way to make roster decisions for a whole host of reasons including SSS, playing conditions in Arizona and extreme variations in quality of opponents, especially in later innings.

Whether a dysfunctional clubhouse has any impact on W-L records is controversial. It is certainly impossible to measure. More than 1 World Series has been won by teams in which the players all hated each other.

-Chris Shaw made BA's Hot Sheet this week.
-Winn gets the promo to AAA and has a day. Not sure why he went up. Trevor Brown is listed on the 7-day DL and only other backup for Fedex is Ryan Matranga. So maybe in injury to Brownie created the need?
-Another strong appearance for Snelton. Is he putting himself in position for tryout with the big club?
-Derek Law is apparently healthy, but suddenly very messed up.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

In any competitive business, it never matters if you are just as good or better than you were last year. It's whether you are better than your competition. Although I cannot prove it, there is statistical circumstantial evidence the Giants may be on the wrong side of this equation in 2017. First, a bit of history.

As the "Silly Ball" and Barry Bonds eras drew to a close in the mid 2000's, Giants GM Brian Sabean went public with a theory: Home Runs in particular and run production in general were about to take a prolonged dive. On top of that, the Giants played in an extreme pitcher-friendly ballpark as did two divisional rivals, the Padres and Dodgers as well as their interleague rivals, the A's. The Giants would be playing a lot of low scoring games. The way to win games in that environment was to suppress opponents BABIP with great defense and maximize the Giants BABIP with hitters who hit a lot of groundballs and line drives and could drive balls into the large gaps of the stadiums they played it. Sure, that approach might not work so well in Phoenix or Coors Field, but those places accounted for a small enough percentage of games that the overall odds would still favor the Giants.

Sabes backed up his bold prediction with action. In 2008, he could have drafted Justin Smoak, a college first baseman who hit lots of HR's but didn't do much else. More than a few Giants fans wanted Justin Smoak. The Giants drafted Buster Posey, an excellent defender at a premium position who hit for a high average with gap power and modest HR power. In later years they drafted Joe Panik and Christian Arroyo. When questioned about Panik's and Arroyo's ability to stick at SS, Sabean's response was we drafted them for their bats which left a lot of people in the dinger-loving crowd scratching their heads. Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Belt, although not exactly in the same mold as the Posey/Panik/Arroyo cookie cutter, really had many of the same attributes. They bolstered their homegrown core with trades for similar players in Freddy Sanchez and Marco Scutaro.

It all worked out exactly the way Brian Sabean drew it up on paper. League Average R/G, which hit a peak of 5.14 in 2000 took an extended dive and reached a nadir of 4.07 in 2014, more than 1 R/G difference. HR/G took a similar dive descending from a peak of 1.17 in 2000 to the lowest level since before 1993 at 0.86 in 2014. It's no accident the Giants thrived in that atmosphere, winning an almost unprecedented 3 championships in 5 seasons.

So, what does this all have to do with the Giants current struggles? Probably a lot. League conditions Brian Sabean built his teams for in the early 2010's have taken a sudden reversal. Both R/G and HR/G rose dramatically since 2014 with R/G this season at their highest level since 2000 at 4.67 and HR/G possibly their highest ever at 1.26, significantly higher than the previous peak of 1.17 in 2000. The high contact/high BA/gap power approach works great when other teams are trying and failing to hit dingers, but it gets left in the dust when opposing teams are hitting more than a HR/G, many with runners on base. Combine these league-wide trends with a highly unusual, probably mostly luck-driven BABIP aberration described in detail in Part 2 of this series, and you have a harmonic convergence of of negative forces driving the Giants dismal first half performance.

Many analysts attribute the spike in R/G and HR/G to juiced balls. Hey! The players can't juice anymore, let's juice the balls! The balls are probably juiced alright, but there has also been an historic influx of highly talented young players into the league over the past 5-6 years. While the Giants maintained a steady flow of very good players in that time, players added by rival teams are even better. Just within the NL West we've seen the emergence of Corey Seager, Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon and numerous other impactful entries. The Rockies have a whole stable of high ceiling young arms. In other divisions, we see tremendous young talent like Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Bryce Harper and many others, and we haven't even mentioned the AL. By historic standards the Giants have drafted and developed very well. Compared with other teams over the past 5 years, maybe not so much. Some of that is due to drafting late in the first round where the odds of success drop dramatically, but there are other avenues to talent acquisition they have done poorly at such as the international market. Combine a relative slippage in talent with some expectedly poor performance from several long term contracts and they suddenly are not fielding a very good team.

So there you have it. Changing league factors, historic level of bad BABIP luck and a slippage in relative talent due mainly to unprecedented league-wide talent improvement all contribute to the Giants current first half disaster.

-Former Giant and Giants farmhand Cody Hall shows up in the boxscore. Drafted in 2011 by the Giants, he's now 29 yo and has appeared in a total of 11.1 MLB innings. I think most or all of that was with the Giants.

-Eric Longenhagen at Fangraphs says Reynolds had a big leg kick at the beginning of the season but had eliminated it in a recent look.
-Krook got off to a rough start with 2 walks and a hit scoring 2 runs in the first inning. He then allowed just 1 BB the next 4 innings before a couple of hits and an error led to 2 unearned runs in the 6'th.

-Sivira and Canario are two 17 year olds who keep showing up in the highlights. Canario in particular shows both power and speed while playing RF. Sivira plays several positions. We'll keep an eye on them.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

We may have witnessed the dawning of the Hwang Age. Jae-Gyun Hwang's first MLB hit in his first MLB game was a game winning HR in the 6'th inning leading the Giants to their first series sweep of the season against a division rival who dominated them earlier in the season. Key Lines:

Austin Slater RF- 1 for 3, BB. BA= .333. Slater's hip is quite obviously not 100% as he was slowed in the OF, particularly on a ball that had he been able to charge more quickly might have prevented a runner from reaching 3B.

Jae-Gyun Hwang 3B- 1 for 4, HR(1). BA= .250. Hwang got his first RBI on a sharp comebacker that bounced off Freeland's glove. Freeland recovered in time to throw out Hwang, but Joe Panik was able to score the Giants first run on the play. The HR in the 6'th inning was called ahead by Mike Krukow who said on the 2-0 pitch that Hwang would be looking for a pitch to hit out of the park. No sooner were the words out of his mouth and bam! It was no cheapie either. The ball landed half way up in the LF bleachers. As we have seen over the years, great Giants have hit HR's for their first MLB hit in their first MLB game and others who have done that have ended up being busts. Let's hope this is the start of a long, successful Giants career for Jae-Gyun Hwang who said his only wish was to play in 1 MLB game. He's already done a lot more than that!

Ty Blach LHP- 6.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K's, GO/AO= 8/2. ERA= 4.60. Blach was coming off a terrible start against the Mets. Things did not look good when he gave up 2 runs before recording an out in the first inning aided by his own throwing error allowing leadoff batter Charlie Blackmon to reach base. Blach clearly did not have his best command but hung tough, got out of the inning and then held the Rockies scoreless until the 6'th inning when he made another throwing error on a Pat Valaika bunt which allowed Valaika to reach 3B and score on a basehit. The bullpen was short between the extra inning game yesterday and Mark Melancon hitting the DL again so Blach stretched it into the 7'th inning to complete a Quality Start.

Steven Okert LHP- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 6.48. Okert needed this outing. He fell behind the first batter he faced in the 8'th 3-1 but made the pitches he had to and got 2 more big outs against LH batters in the 9'th.

Hunter Strickland RHP- 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, Save(1). ERA= 2.25. Sam Dyson is officially the Closer with Melancon hitting the DL, but he was apparently not available due to pitching in the extra-inning affair the night before. Strickland got the call and ended it.

-Just when you think Stratton has turned a corner….his peripherals are better than the outcome, though.
-The Giants must have heard us talking because Jae-Gyun Hwang is the latest callup. He'll start at 3B against the LHP in AT&T Park today.

-Fabian is hitting .351 over his last 10 games and .294 in June.
-Van Horn has a reputation as a slick fielding SS, but he's raking to a .462 BA over his last 10 games and .397 for June.
-Riggs is quietly having a good season. 6'8" reliever who has been around awhile.

The Giants went to extra innings to overcome a 3-run dinger by Mark Reynolds, which accounted for all of the Rockies' Runs. The Giants used 11 singles, a double and 3 walks to produce their 4 runs. Key Lines:

Denard Span- 3 for 7. BA= .287. We've talked a lot about the tremendous month of June that Span is having. He may be making himself tradeable, but he's signed for 1 more season at an AAV of $10 M and the Giants do not have an MLB ready CF prospect in the wings. Short of getting one in a trade return, it's probably better to hang onto Span and try to get the next CF another way.

Brandon Belt- 2 for 6. BA= .231. It's probably just a coincidence, but Belt has been a hot hitter ever since Javier Lopez hung the "Sparky" nickname on him on the air in ATL. Belt has a 10 game hit streak going in which he is batting .306 with a .694 SLG%.

Kelby Tomlinson PH/3B- 1 for 3. BA= .265. I wasn't able to find a separate split for PH, but they put some numbers up on the TV broadcast which showed Kelby's career BA as a PH is just under .300. That's getting into Manny Mota territory!

Gorkys Hernandez LF- 2 for 6. BA= .223. Hernandez has turned his season around hitting .361, 13 for 36, in June.

Ryder Jones 3B- 0 for 3. BA= .000. Jones has struggled at the plate, but looked a bit more confident and squared up a couple of balls. He looks very rangy at 3B. He is 0 for 13. Didn't Willie Mays go 0 for 12 before getting his first MLB hit?

Austin Slater PH- 1 for 1. BA= .333. Slater tested his hip flexor as he had to book it down to 1B to beat out a swinging bunt. He did not appear to be having problems. So, Ryder Jones squares up a couple of balls and comes up empty while Slater hits one about 50 ft and gets a knock. Baseball!

Sam Dyson RHP- 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. ERA= 9.00. Dyson's ERA with the Giants is a more palatable 4.91. He has 10 K's and 3 BB's in 7.1 IP for the Giants which are close to his career averages. He had 12 BB and 7 K's in 16.2 IP with Texas before they released him. Prior to that he had ERA's of 2.14, 2.63 and 2.43 in 2014-2016 with 38 Saves in 2016. He has 2 years of arbitration eligibility remaining after this season.

Cory Gearrin RHP- 3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K, GO/AO= 7/0. ERA= 1.98. I could ask where would the Giants be without Cory Gearrin, but…..nevermind. Gearrin his having standout results even though his K rate is down and the BB rate is up.

-Ryan Howard has put together a very solid first 3 months of his first full pro season: .323 in April, .315 in May, .351 in June. .400 over his last 10 games.
-Reynolds got off to a slow start to his first full pro season but has really kicked it into gear. After hitting .253 in April he turned in a .340 in May and is hitting .342 so far in June.
-Aramis Garcia is hitting .333 in his last 10 games.

Buster Posey C- 3 for 4, 2B, SF. BA= .347. Buster Posey is hitting .345 in June after hitting .354 in April and .344 in May.

Brandon Belt 1B- 1 for 3, 3B, 2 BB. BA= .229. Belt's career BABIP is .334. It .268 this year after a .363 in 2015 and a .346 in 2016. They did not just start shifting on Belt this year. His fWAR of 1.2 is #15 among MLB 1B. Not great but considering the first half BABIP, not terrible either. Even with no second half improvement, his projected fWAR of 2.4 at least earns back the AAV on his salary.

Jeff Samardzija RHP- 6.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 4.63. Samardzija's career BABIP Against is .296. This year it's .325. His K/BB of 10.03/1.11 is by far the best of his career.

Sam Dyson RHP- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 9.67. Dyson has potential. At this point the Giants probably don't have anything to lose by being patient with him and seeing if he can find some consistency.

Monday, June 26, 2017

When I started researching this post, I was planning to write about the Giants are by design a groundball/line drive team and how advances in defensive positioning have taken their game away from them. Positioning may well be part of the problem, but my conclusion is that plain old fashioned luck played a bigger role. Here are the numbers:

So yes, Giants batters are hitting a few more groundballs and a few fewer LD's and Giants pitchers are giving up more flyballs and more LD's. Some of that may be by design as many MLB hitters are consciously trying to elevate the ball more and teams continue to shift more. So it is likely not all of this is purely due to luck, but the peripheral numbers do not explain the .019 drop in BABIP by the Giants AND the .033 jump in BABIP by opposing batters. Differences like that over a half season sample size are likely to be due to a massive case of bad BABIP luck. After all, teams did not just start shifting this year and the Giants did not just become a GB/LD team in one season. They've been that for a few years now.

So, if you watch game after game and think to yourself that the Giants are hitting a whole lot of balls right at defenders and opposing teams are finding a whole lot of holes in the defense and the luck has to turn sometime. Well, it looks like the numbers back you up. While injuries and poor play have undoubtedly contributed to the Giants first half faceplant, most of if is due to plain old fashioned bad luck.

-Fabian is hitting .316 over his last 10 games and .282 for the month of June.
-Van Horn is hitting .395 over his last 10 games and .388 for the month of June and showing some speed on the basepaths to boot.

The Giants did not put up much of a fight to try to stave off a sweep at home against a team that is not very good. Key Lines:

Ryder Jones 3B- 0 for 2. BA= .000. Opposing pitchers already seem to have a book on Jones. He's looking for fastballs early in the count and he's not seeing the back-foot slider well.

Austin Slater LF- 0 for 2. BA= .324. Slater made a couple of nice running catches in the OF. He also had a pretty nice oppo-field line drive carry into Jay Bruce's glove.

Matt Moore LHP- 4.1 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 3 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 6.04. I don't know if Moore was tipping his pitches or if Rene Rivera is very good at remembering opposing pitch sequences, but he appeared to know both the pitch and location ahead of time on his 2 dingers. I mean, he swung from the heels like there was no doubt in his mind both times. And he's a weak hitting backup catcher and if he's that good at reading pitch sequences, how come he doesn't do that against other pitchers?

The Giants try to regroup agains the visiting Rockies who are coming off a losing streak of their own(remember the Mets were coming off a 4-game sweep in LA). Jeff Samardzija faces German Marquez tomorrow night.

This was a pretty good pitcher's duel until the Giants bullpen entered the picture in the 8'th inning. Key Lines:

Brandon Belt 1B- 1 for 4, HR(14). BA= .228. Sparky has 3 dingers in his last 5 games and is now on a pace to hit at least 28 on the season. He still has 4 games until the mathematical midpoint. His previous career high in HR's was 18.

Ryder Jones 3B- 0 for 4. BA= .000. Wow! Ryder Jones looks like he's put in some work on his body since I last saw him play for the San Jose Giants. Back then I was comparing him to Babe Ruth without the paunch. He looks like a 5-tool athlete now. Hard to judge 1 game and he was facing one of the best pitchers in baseball, but the early look suggests he may struggle with sliders at the back foot, like pretty much every other LH hitting prospect the Giants have brought up….except maybe Joe Panik.

Johnny Cueto RHP- 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 3 K's. ERA- 4.20. The peripherals aren't pretty, but this was Cueto's most effective start of the season. He has 4 QS out of his last 6 with one of the non-QS being a 2 ER/5 IP game. He has a 3.42 ERA over that 6 start span.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

This season's faceplant has left Giants fans scratching their heads wondering what they are witnessing. The core of players who led the Giants to 3 World Series Championships in 5 years in the first half of the decade remains largely intact with most players in the prime of their careers. A down 2015 could be blamed on the odd year jinx and the every other year post-celebration hangover. 2016 looked like it might be the year they set records with a 4-peat of the even year magic, only to see it ruined by a massive bullpen failure.

With the bullpen fixed by the addition of Mark Melancon, for a very big price, 2017 looked like a season in which the Giants might start a run of odd year magic. What happened instead was a faceplant of historic proportions. The team, by preseason projections which are known to be generally both accurate and conservative, was supposed to win between 86 and 90 games and contend for playoff spot and possible championship. Optimistic scenarios had them as high as 94-96 Wins. Instead, they have stumbled and crawled to a 27-49 record.

What has Giants fans concerned, and rightly so, is this season was headed south long before Madison Bumgarner took his fateful ride in Colorado. Maybe if you squinted hard, you could see some early signs of a turnaround, but even with a fully healthy Bumgarner, it would have taken an historic comeback to overcome that start. While there have been a few strong performances by individual players, the failure is broad based and accomplished with a core the Giants appear to be locked into for the remainder of the decade through a series of longterm contract extensions.

I have wanted to write a post or series of posts on the great collapse for awhile now. It's not an easy topic to tackle because there does not appear to be a single cause or simple solution. I thought some basic numbers might be a good place to start. We are now within 5 games of the mathematical mid-point of the season. I went into the Fangraphs Projections section and looked up the pre-season ZIPS projections for the Giants, then divided by 2 to get the first half zWAR projection for each player. I then subtracted their current season fWAR to find the variance. Here is what I found(listed are player- Season Projected zWAR/2, Season To Date fWAR, Projected zWAR/2-fWAR Variance)(Disclaimer: Dan Szymborski, creator of ZIPS, warns against a adding up individual zWARs and using that to calculate a projected team win total; zWAR and fWAR may not be comparable so this is all a rough estimate of relative player performance compared to expected):

Of all the attempts by the Giants to fill holes/apply bandaids, Austin Slater is the only one who has delivered a positive fWAR balance. All the others were a negative whether washed up veterans, AAAA players or highly touted prospects.

A Dan Szymborski comment in the discussion of his Giants ZIPS posting on Fangraphs was most interesting in retrospect: "Overal, the position-player side of things appears to be well suited to AVOIDING THE AWFUL."(the last 3 words were bolded in his original comment). There was also no indication of major concerns for the pitching or the depth. Well, awful they have been. While perhaps none have been individually awful, the cumulative effect of a broad-based underperformance resulted in a collective awful. How and why did this occur? I don't know but I have some thoughts which I will share in future posts.

-Austin Slater seems to have grabbed the LF job by the throat, so Parker may not have a starting job to come back to.
-Ryder Jones has been solid all season which makes his current extended hot streak all the more impressive. He's hitting .351 over his last 10 games, .343 for the month of June and .352 since his BA hit a nadir of .264 on May 23.
-Hwang is creeping closer to his opt out date and he's been playing exclusively at 1B, which would not seem to enhance his chances of getting called up to SF.
-The Giants must think Derek Law is healthy as they used him on consecutive days since his demotion, but man, something is not right with him!

The Giants entire farm system will be in action tonight as the Arizona Giants open their season. We should see several 2017 draftees in the lineup possibly including first rounder Heliot Ramos and second rounder Jacob Gonzalez.

The Giants were coming off a road trip that ended when they arrived at SFO at 5:00 AM game day. That may be why Buster Posey and Hunter Pence were not in the starting lineup. With Eduardo Nunez hitting the DL and Conor Gillaspie getting the call to replace him, Bruce Bochy sent out what some might call a forfeit lineup. But it was SP Ty Blach who travelled back to SF a day ahead of the team who didn't seem ready to play. When the Mets, who were swept in 4 games in LA, ran up a 6 spot in the second inning, this game was over. Key Lines:

Denard Span CF- 2 for 5. BA= .281. Span is one of two Giants offensive players to perform significantly above preseason fWAR projections in the first half. His leadoff single in the first inning led to the Giants first run.

Brandon "Sparky" Belt- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .227. Belt hustled after a pop up down the RF line in he first inning, then threw a seed to 2B to nail Asdrubel Cabrera who was trying to stretch it into a double. He then came up in the bottom of the inning and stroked a double into the RF corner to drive in Span to temporarily tie the game. Maybe that slightly snarky nickname Javier Lopez hung on him from the broadcast booth on the road trip provided a "spark"?

Speaking of….Lopez took to calling Buster Posey "Gerald" and I'm not sure how much longer Lopez is going to be welcome in the Giants clubhouse if he keeps coming up with these nicknames! LOL!

Austin Slater LF- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .333. One of the hits was an IF squibber that contributed to the 3-run rally in the 6'th inning. The the other was a lined double to LF in the 4'th inning that went for naught.

Gorkys Hernandez RF- 1 for 4. BA= .213. Hernandez' soft single with the bases loaded in the 6'th inning drove in a pair of runs but he also GIDP'd. Overall, Hernandez has performed significantly below preseason projections.

Ty Blach LHP- 3 IP, 11 H, 7 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 4.86. There was the bloop by Cabrera in the first inning and maybe another 3B might have speared Seth Lugo's double down the LF line in the second but the Mets mostly roasted the ball off Blach for the first 2 innings. Blach stayed in to pitch a scoreless 3'rd inning, but the game was over by the middle of the second inning.

The Giants blew a lead when the Braves scored 8 runs in the 5'th inning, then mounted a comeback in the late innings only to fall short, once again. Key Lines:

Joe Panik 2B- 2 for 4, HR(5), BB, SF. BA= .275. Panik's overall production is getting back to what you would project for him. He's hitting .371 in June after a .301 in April but a .192 collapse in May.

Buster Posey 1B- 3 for 5, 2 2B, HR(10). BA= .344. Posey is having his best season since 2012. That short porch is RF in the new Braves ballpark seems to be an inviting target for RH batters. We saw 2 line drives carry over the short wall and the Buster hit a pop up down the line that stayed fair and easily found the seats. Gonna be lots of dingers and runs scored in that stadium!

Austin Slater LF/CF- 2 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .323. Nice bounceback game after an 0 for 5 the night before. Interesting he moved to CF when Belt entered the game in LF.

Brandon Belt LF- 1 for 2, HR(13), BB. BA= .226. Belt is on a pace to hit over 25 HR's which is way over his previous career high.

Matt Cain RHP- 4 IP, 10 H, 7 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 6.43. Cain pitched decently in Colorado but otherwise has allowed 17 R in 13.1 IP in his other 3 starts this month. I think he's the answer to the question of who leaves the rotation to make room for Bumgarner. Giants might even want to consider having another look at Chris Stratton or check out Joan Gregorio before Bum gets back.

Bryan Morris RHP- 0.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 6.43. Morris came into the game with a 6-5 lead, runners at first and second, no outs. He proceeded to allow 3 straight singles, a SF and a 3-run dinger. Not sure what Bochy was thinking there, but Morris prior appearance was also a disaster. Morris has allowed 8 ER in 2.2 IP over his last 3 Appearances.

Kyle Crick RHP- 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 0.00. Cricky allowed a hit to the first batter he faced which drove in 1 of Morris' runners, but then he settled down and had success pitching to contact with a FB that averaged 94.8 MPH per Fangraphs.

Hunter Pence's laser shot HR in the top of the 9'th inning tied the game and rescued a QS by Jeff Samardzija, only to have Matt Kemp hit a walk-off opposite field HR in the 11'th inning to give the Braves the win. Key Lines:

Denard Span CF-- 3 for 5, 3B. BA= .274. Span continues his hot June hitting .342. His triple in the 8'th set up a run and got the Giants close enough for Pence to tie it in the 9'th. Did you know that by Fangraphs metrics, Denard Span is the 11'th best defensive CF in MLB this season?

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Austin Slater ignited a cold Giants offense with a 3-run dinger in the 8'th inning and the Giants added on to rescue Matt Moore's Quality Start. Key Lines:

Brandon Belt 1B- 1 for 4, HR(12). BA= .223. Belt has been struggling at the plate, but he's on a pace to set a career high in HR's by a substantial margin.

Austin Slater LF- 1 for 4, HR(2). BA= .340. Now THAT's what I'm talkin' about! 3-run dingers win ballgames and Slater supplied that in this game. The league's pitchers will inevitably find the holes in his swing and he won't hit .340 over the long haul but so far Slater has given the Giants everything they need in LF. I say the job is his until he proves it was all a fluke.

Kelby Tomlinson 3B- 2 for 3, SB(3). BA= .294. Stay hot, Kelby!

Matt Moore LHP- 7 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 5.82. That's more like it! It looked like Moore's bounceback start would go for naught until Slater hit his bomb in the 8'th. Hopefully this is a game to build on.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Another city, another ballpark, another series, another wretched game. The Giants rolled into ATL and did a faceplant in the dirt of the new ballpark, losing by a forfeit score. Key Lines:

Johnny Cueto RHP- 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 4 K, GO/AO= 10/0. ERA= 4.42. Cueto showed up to pitch but the Giants gave him no run support that the bullpen blew a close game wide open. If Cueto didn't want out before tonight, I bet he does now! If he does, he'll try his darndest to put a few more of these together to generate some interest from a contending team at the trade deadline.

Derek Law RHP- 0.0 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 5.40. Law has hit a wall. After posting a 2.91 ERA in April and a 3.27 in May, he's ballooned to 13.50 in June. He has allowed 8 ER in just 2 IP, over his last 3 appearances. Might be time to start asking questions about how his arm feels.

-Not a QS for Gregorio but it was 5 dominant innings. Tyler Beede and Andrew Suarez might be the top 2 SP prospects in the system, but don't forget about Gregorio who just might have the highest ceiling of the 3.

-Gomez just keeps hitting. He seems to have settled into a steady role playing 2B. Any word on how he's doing defensively there?
-CJ Hinojosa is hitting .333 over his last 10 games including 9 for 17 over his last 4.

The Giants got a QS from Ty Blach and a go-ahead PH 2-run HR from Hunter Pence in the top of the 9'th. Brandon Crawford doubled in an insurance run. Then Mark Melancon not only allowed his 4'th Blown Save of the season, he gave up 4 runs, the last 3 on Nolan Arenado's 3-run walk-off blast, a crushing loss that put an exclamation point on a season already lost. Key Lines:

Denard Span CF- 1 for 2, 3 BB, 2 SB(3). BA= .266. Span continues to set the table at the top of the order. His teammates at the top of order have not always taken advantage.

Brandon Crawford- 3 for 5, 2B, HR(6). BA= .258. Nice game for Crawford out of the 3-hole.

Hunter Pence PH- 1 for 1, HR(4). BA= .251. When you go to analyze what went wrong this season, Hunter Pence's injuries and ineffectiveness would be a good place to start. He came through big time here, though.

Ty Blach LHP- 6.2 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 4.23. Must have been a thrill for Blach to start a game in his hometown. He delivered too. If you can pitch in Coors Field, you can pitch anywhere.

Mark Melancon RHP- 0.1 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 5.09. 4'th Blown Save of the season with 2 weeks before the half-way mark. That would be approximately the pace set by Santiago Casilla last year. Are Blown Saves contagious? Is Closing such a mental task that expecting to blow the save is transferrable from one closer in one season to a new closer in a new season? Is Melancon healthy? Is it ever a good idea to sign any closer to a big long term contract?

-Van Horn's reputation is an excellent fielding/no stick SS. If he's figuring it out at the plate, he could be an interesting prospect.
-After hitting a 3-game rough patch 5/20-6/4, Baragar recovered to allow just 2 ER in 15 IP over his next 2 starts.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

The Giants scored a total of 17 runs in the first two games of the series and lost both. Today they held the Rockies to 5 runs…..and still lost! The other story of this game was clutch hitting by the Rockies who scored all 5 of their runs on 2-out hits and the lack of clutch hitting by the Giants who were 1 for 7 with 2 outs and runners on base. Key Lines:

Giants first 3 hitters went a combined 7 for 14 and did not figure into any of the scoring. As Vin Scully would say, "go figure"! The Giants lone run scored when Nick Hundley hit a 1-out double in the 4'th inning and Gorkys Hernandez drove him in with a 2-out single. BTW, Gorkys is 7 for 14 in June so far after hitting .154 and .196 in April and May respectively.

Matt Cain RHP- 5 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.99. This qualifies as a good start by Cainer these days. What isn't different is the lack of run support.

Joe Panik 2B- 3 for 5, 2 2B, HR(4). BA= .267. Panik is 6 for 13 in 3 games since coming back from a thumb sprain.

Hunter Pence- 2 for 4. BA= .242. Pence's BA hit a nadir of .228 on June 10. Since then he's gone 7 for 19.

Austin Slater LF- 1 for 3, BB. BA= .400. Slater seems to have solved the LF problem, at least for the time being. Now the Giants have to figure out the rest of the roster.

Jeff Samarzija RHP- 1 for 2, HR(1). BA= .103. Shark's blast was the longest HR of the statcast era by a pitcher.

Jeff Samardzija RHP- 6 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 1 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 4.81. Shark's dinger gave him and the Giants a 5-1 lead in the top of the 5'th inning. Maybe he was still thinking about the HR when he gave up a 5-spot in the bottom of the 5'th?

-So who gets called up if Nunez hits the DL? Arroyo got hit on the hand. Not sure where he is in recovering from that. Gillaspie? Ryder Jones? Hwang? Ruggy? Mac?
-I believe this was Dusten Knight's first pro start.

-Angomas is a guy who has shown flashes of being able to do it all, but has never found traction on his career.
-Van Horn is hitting .361 over his last 10 games and .354 in June after hitting .216 in April and .176 in May.

-Stetson Woods might have been my favorite draft pick from 2014. He got off to a promising start that summer in Arizona, but after 2 awful seasons in 2015 and 2016, I wrote him off as a prospect. He returns this season as the Opening Day starter for S-K and throws down 6 shutout innings. Gotta be a story here somewhere! He is 22 yo now and from is bio pic, look…..a bit different. Timmy hair!

Austin Slater LF/3B- 4 for 5. BA= .405. The Austin Slater hit machine keeps pounding them out. He played 3B for the first time in his professional career after Nunez pulled up with a gimpy hammy. Aaron Hill and Kelby had already been used as PH.

Matt Moore LHP- 3 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 2 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 6.00. How can you have enough stuff to get 7 of 9 outs by K and still give up 11 hits? Most of those hits were line drives too, so it wasn't all just BABIP luck.

The Giants drafted a whole bunch of very large pitchers on Day 3 of the draft. My mental picture of the war room is of scouts frantically combing through college rosters, circling any pitcher listed at 6'6" or above and calling their name the next round. Here's the breakdown:

2017: .394/.488/.812, 16 2B, 17 HR, 31 BB, 25 K, 165 AB. Conner Menez and Brandon Van Horn seem to be working out pretty well so far, so the Giants go back to the well at The Master's College in Santa Clarita, CA. Sexton looks more athletic in video than his listed size might lead you to believe.

2017: 7-1, 1.94, 55.2 IP, 20 BB, 77 K. Big pitcher with good numbers taken a round after a small pitcher with bad numbers. As Vin Scully would say, "go figure!". Hmm…Wallace St is in Alabama? Wonder who THAT was named after? They have a Senator named Luther Strange. Maybe someday there will be a Strange St?

2017: .291/.368/.459, 16 2B, 2 3B, 8 HR, 21 BB, 69 K, 223 AB. Not sure if there is a military commitment attached to VMI. Current administration is going back to strict enforcement of commitments by Military Academy athletes.

About Me

I grew up in Northern California near the Napa Valley. I got interested in baseball and the Giants by listening to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons broadcast Giants games on KSFO. My early heros were Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and a guy you don't always think of, Jim Ray Hart. When I got older and was in school and early career, I didn't have time to follow as closely, but I tried to look up their boxscores each day and catch an occasional game on TV. One habit I got into at an early age was looking up the stats of their minor league players in The Sporting News. That became more difficult as TSN moved away from comprehensive baseball coverage. Now, of course, technology and affluence has changed all that. The internet is teaming with farm system/minor league information as well as college and high school baseball. Satellite TV enables me to get most of the Giants games on TV. I'm married with 2 wonderful daughters, who like to watch games with me.